How To Manage Expectations And Set Boundaries During Client Onboarding

By Jennifer Bourn on November 5, 2018

Educating clients on what you expect of them, what they can expect of you, and when and how you’re available sets your relationship up for success and ensures you don’t get run ragged by an out of control client with unreasonable demands.

Have you found yourself in any of these situations:

You have to excuse yourself from a family gathering to send a client a quick email. You miss your child’s soccer game because your client needs something.

You’re leisurely browsing through Facebook in the evening and a client reaches out through messenger with a question and wants an answer now.

Your client just appeared after going MIA and you’re forced to drop everything and finish their project.

When you wake up in the morning you have three emails from your client all after 7:00 pm the night before and they’re mad that you haven’t responded.

The client didn’t meet their deadlines, but they still expect you to meet yours.

You’re trying to deal with an upset client because they changed the scope, you provided, a change order, and they thought the work should be done for free.

If you’re nodding your head yes, you may think you have bad clients. After all, it’s easy to blame these uncomfortable situations on bad clients because they don’t know what they’re doing and you do. It’s also easy to stomp our feet, get mad, and vent behind the scenes, then simply fall in line and do whatever the client wants whenever the client wants.

But easy isn’t always right.

As a freelancer or service provider, you want your client to like you so you tend to jump when they say jump. You also want to get a great testimonial and future referrals, so you may cave to crazy client requests instead of standing your ground. You probably find yourself doing things you wouldn’t normally do because it’s easier to say yes than have a tough conversation.

But when this goes on for too long, you begin to feel resentful of your clients and taken advantage of. Then when you have hit your limit, you get mad, blame the client, and things slide downhill really fast. Yikes!

You may think that by bending over backward for your clients and going the extra mile to accommodate every ridiculous request is providing extraordinary service, but it’s not. These actions actually do more harm than good. By not setting clear expectations and establishing boundaries up front, you’re teaching clients to keep asking and keep pushing because you keep saying yes.

Two Critical Aspects Of Client Onboarding

When you welcome a new client into your business and kick off a new project, an onboarding campaign should be triggered to educate your client, equip them with the information they need, and empower them to be a great client.

There are several moving parts to a successful new client onboarding system, including internal and external tasks, communications, and activities — and I cover all of them in my client management course, Profitable Project Plan. But don’t worry, if you don’t have a comprehensive client onboarding system in place yet, that’s okay.

There are two critical aspects of client onboarding that you can’t ignore:

Setting clear expectations

Establishing realistic boundaries

Setting Clear Expectations

You want your clients to love you, you want to make them happy, and you want them to tell all their friends about you when the project is done — and communicating exactly what you expect of the client and how specific situations will be addressed can sometimes feel like we’re putting that at risk. But in reality, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Setting clear expectations and being upfront about what your client will need to do will make them feel more comfortable. Taking the time to set expectations also reinforces the fact that they are working with a professional, not their buddy and shows them that you take their project and the relationship seriously.

Here are nine things you need to communicate when setting expectations with clients:

Response times:

How long does it take to receive a response to an email or phone call?

Do you respond to client messages same day or within 24 hours?

Do clients receive priority response times with a larger retainer?

What response times do you expect of the client?

Scope of work:

Let the client know what happens if the scope of work changes.

Explain what constitutes a scope change or new request and how the process of managing changes and new requests works.

Make sure the client understands that changes and additions to the scope may affect the timeline and budget.

Milestones and deadlines:

Make sure the client understands that the milestones and deadlines you both agreed to are serious.

Communicate what is expected of you and what is expected of the client to meet each project milestone, as well as what happens if the work doesn’t get done or one of you misses a deadline.

Respect for time:

Talk with the client about the value of your time and of their time. Let them know that you’ll show up on time and ready to work for every meeting and that you expect them to do the same.

Consulting:

Reassure your client that you’re be providing consulting along the way to ensure the project’s success and that while not every client does everything you say, you do expect them to listen with an open mind and engage in positive conversation.

Behavior:

Remind your client that you like working with nice people.

Let them know that you’re happy to help them in any way you can, but you will not tolerate mean, rude, hurtful, or offensive behavior.

Communication types:

Be crystal clear about how the communication with your clients will be happening.

Will you be communicating primarily by email or phone?

Will you send the links to a video chat?

Will you be meeting in person?

Work required:

Be honest with your clients about how much work they will have to do to complete the project, what support you provide (if any), and how the work needs to be provided to you.

Participation required:

Let your client know that this is an interactive process and you’re going to need them to participate fully and engage with you or your team as needed, providing background, input, feedback, and revisions.

Remember, when setting expectations with new clients, you’re not just telling the clients what you expect of them. You’re also telling them what they can expect of you — which can be pretty powerful in terms of reassuring a new client that you are not just a good choice, but the best choice for the job.

Establishing Realistic Boundaries

Setting expectations and establishing boundaries go hand-in-hand because they’re both all about helping your client to be a great client and feel more comfortable with the investment and the process. When you set boundaries as part of your client onboarding, your time, your sanity, and your schedule is protected because the client has guidelines in place to reign in their actions.

Here are five things you need to communicate when establishing boundaries with clients:

Availability:

Share when you’re available. For example, I’m available Monday-Friday between the hours of 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Pacific time.

Response time:

Let the client know what happens if they email you or call you outside of normal business hours and when they can expect a response.

Social media:

Everyone uses social media, but just because you’re on Facebook at 8:00 pm, that doesn’t mean your client can ping you through Messenger to ask questions about their project.

Communication types:

Be sure your client understand what types of communication tools are off limits or not accepted. For example, I don’t allow any communication about a client project to happen through Facebook Messenger or Twitter direct messages.

Location:

If you work from home, you may need to communicate that you do not take meetings at your home. Once a local client of mine just dropped by to talk about their project and because I wasn’t expecting them, I answered the door in my pajamas without a shower. It was awkward and embarrassing for us both.

Firm, Fair, And Friendly

When working with clients, your job isn’t to be their friend. Your job is to be the expert and leader they hired you to be. That means having the tough or uncomfortable conversations when they are needed. It means setting clear expectations and boundaries and enforcing them.

Taking the time to educate your client on what you expect of them, what they can expect of you, and when and how you’re available not only sets your relationship up for success but ensures that you don’t get run ragged by an out of control client who keeps asking you to jump through higher and higher hoops.

At my agency Bourn Creative, we use the phrase “firm, fair, and friendly” to describe our approach to client services:

We are firm about scope of work, budgets, deadlines, boundaries, etc. — the serious parts of doing business together.

We are always fair, never behaving or acting without integrity, empathy, and honesty.

We are friendly because it’s just more enjoyable to work with people who are enjoyable.

As part of your new client onboarding process, your communications that set expectations and establish boundaries should embody the firm, fair, and friendly approach, which in turn, reinforces your professionalism, strengthens trust, and creates a successful client relationship.

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About Jennifer Bourn

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Bourn is founding partner at Bourn Creative, a full service design and development company specializing in WordPress. With twenty years in the industry under her belt, she is an award-winning designer who consults on branding, website strategy, and content strategy. Jennifer speaks often, delivering workshops and keynote presentations, blogs about food and travel at Inspired Imperfection, co-organizes the Sacramento WordPress Meetup and WordCamp Sacramento, and writes often for other websites on freelancing, client services, blogging, marketing, websites, and branding.

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